The invention concerns a solid fuel stove, in particular a wood stove fitted with a device capable of neutralizing the polluting elements of the burnt gases and that comprises, in the conventional manner, a combustion space formed by vertical walls including two lateral walls, front wall and a rear wall, the combustion space extending between a grate and the burnt gas flue.
It is well known that the burnt gases from the combustion of the wood contain large quantities of polluting elements, the detailed list of which is given in a summary and comparative table further in this text.
It has been tried to produce combustion as complete as possible of the burnt gases by using catalyzers designed for the purpose of increasing the temperature significantly where the burnt gases are passed through. These catalyzers have a relatively short life; their catalytic activity diminishes with ageing which means that the system requires more heat at the start and that it may even fail to start at all.
The length of the life of a catalyzer will also be significantly shortened by burning materials other than natural wood such as, for instance, waste, chipboard, paper logs or artificial logs, coal, light liquids, chemical lighters, processed or paint-coated wood, floated wood or chemical cleaning agents. All of these products contain, as a matter of fact, elements that will poison the catalyzer which decreases its effectiveness very significantly.
This means, in practice, that the user will have to have the catalyzer replaced much sooner than scheduled and that, in general, this operation will be omitted so that pollution will no longer be controlled after a period of use that is shorter than scheduled. The purpose of the invention is to provide a device capable of neutralizing the polluting elements of the burnt gasses for a practically unlimited period of time as length of use of the device is practically equal to that of the stove itself.